by Ana Sparks
The flower boy was gone, presumably scrambling off to fetch the right flowers. A flurry of barks got Melinda’s head swiveling, owl-like, to the corner of the room.
“Who let that thing in there?”
Next thing I knew, she was scooping Randolph up in her arms and storming out of the room. In the mirror, Lux mouthed “sorry” to me.
I smiled wanly back. It had been a good idea, bringing my little chocolate spaniel to cheer me up. But Randolph hated Paul and couldn’t even be in the wedding party like we’d planned since he barked at Paul so much.
God, why was everything telling me that this was wrong?
“Be careful you don’t smudge your face,” a familiar voice said.
I turned to see Cynthia staring at me innocuously. I gaped at her for a minute. Her over-tanned skin was even more orange than usual, while her eyebrows had been sharpened into thick black points. She looked terrifying.
“Don’t want you looking anything less than perfect for my brother,” she drawled, and I nodded.
Cynthia was one of the most unwelcome parts of being with Paul. She was a vapid, self-obsessed, bitchy drama queen who had taken it upon herself to be my friend despite the fact that we had all of nothing in common. She frightened me, and, even now, I felt my heartbeat accelerate in her presence.
“Memorized your vows?” she asked in an accusatory tone, and I gulped.
My trembling hand dug into my sweatshirt pocket, feeling my apartment keys, my phone, and—nothing. My other hand dove into my jeans pocket and came out empty too.
“You have, like, twenty minutes,” Cynthia added helpfully.
Horror-struck, my gaze shot to my reflection in the mirror. As brushes powdered, stippled, and stroked my face, hands flashed around my head, and Cynthia gazed admiringly at herself in the right corner. The girl who wasn’t me trembled in the middle of it all, amid all the madness.
“I…” my mirror twin started to say.
But no one was listening. This wasn’t really for her anyway. This was for the news, for business, for something to do, for people to see, for food to eat and music to dance to. This was for everyone but her, and yet…
“I need a minute.”
Her voice was quiet, lost in the din. No one noticed.
“I need a minute!”
The noise stopped.
Brush, eyelash curler, and hands all froze, while Cynthia’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
Melinda, reappearing just in time from her confiscation of my dog, stormed up to me.
“What did you just say?”
“I said I need a minute.”
She blinked as if my words were as good as a gob of spit on her cheek. Then her eyes narrowed into battle-ready slits.
“You have fifteen minutes until you have to walk down the aisle, and you’re not even close to being ready. We don’t have time to waste.”
“I need a minute,” I said. “Or I won’t be walking down the aisle at all.”
It was so quiet that I could hear Lux’s admiring chuckle in the back. Now Melinda’s eyes were so narrowed they almost looked shut. Her tensed hands opened and closed, opened and closed.
She swept to the door and, talons on the golden handle, barked to the others, “Give her a minute!”
As if a gunshot had gone off, the room was thrown back into motion, everyone thrusting aside their tools and fleeing for the door. Cynthia was last, throwing a disdainful orange sneer at me. Then, finally, the door shut and I was alone. Alone, that was, except for Lux.
She was there in the corner, sitting on the floor, her blue hair as spiked-up and as crazy as possible, just like Melinda had told her it shouldn’t be, and her lip ring was even more noticeable than usual on her smiling red lips.
“Nice one, Al.”
But I couldn’t even look at her right then. I needed to think and be alone.
“Sorry, but you too, Lux,” I said softly, avoiding her gaze.
“Really?”
I nodded. “Just a minute.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah of course,” she said, her smirk of comradery falling into a disappointed pout.
The door shut behind her, and I turned back to the woman in the mirror, who was just as uncertain as I was.
What had been the point of this exactly? Why had I asked for one minute when I needed ten? No, not even ten. I needed the rest of my life.
Gazing in the mirror, I asked my reflection, “What do I do now?”
The answer came as a gust of wind from a window I hadn’t even noticed was open—a gust that rustled the white-gold poof in the corner. The dress. My dress, which wasn’t even my dress.
It had been my mother’s and didn’t suit me at all. Yet, for this reason especially, it seemed suited to this day.
The only thing left to do was to put on the dress.
As I stepped into it, images mashed against each other in my mind: my mother with her sad, wilted-lip smile; Papa with his mustache spread in victory; Paul with those empty, china-blue eyes.
My reflection was crying. I hadn’t noticed until I zipped up the dress and looked into the mirror at the beautiful stranger. She was crying tears I hardly felt. That was fitting, too.
Clad in the dress that wasn’t hers, wearing the face that wasn’t hers, about to attend the wedding that wasn’t hers, the stranger cried.
The tears slid down the immaculate, flawless-skinned face, down onto the gauzy white chiffon, over the golden taffeta leaves, down onto the floor, which shook as a noise exploded in the room.
As I turned around, I was grabbed.
“Lux?”
Next thing I knew, something cold and hard was pressed against my back. Lips grazed my ear.
“Say one word, princess, and it’ll be your last,” a man’s voice growled.
A gun cocked into the back of my beautiful, picture-perfect wedding dress.
Chapter Two
Jake
Shit. Just what was I getting myself into?
I checked the rearview mirror and then returned my gaze to the road. I reminded myself: 50,000 dollars. That was what I was getting myself into. It was all for one little job, one small favor.
I checked the rearview again and then slammed the radio on. Hell no. This was no little job. This was the biggest fucking motherload of big jobs, no matter how “simple” Sunshine had told me it would be.
The song on the radio was asking me what I’d become, telling me that everyone goes away in the end. No shit. I hit the button to change the station. I didn’t need some grungy band reminding me how much of a piece of shit I’d become, how I could hardly remember the last time I’d felt like I’d really connected with someone.
Now it was a generic pop group asking me where the love was. I couldn’t help an ironic smile. Rich people were always mouthing off about how all you really needed was love to be happy. That happiness was a choice. That you just had to do good and then God would deliver rainbows and angels and singing animals and you’d lived happily ever after.
Damn, how nice it would be to give them a day or two in my body, a nice few hours in my life so they could see just how covered in shit real life was for the rest of us.
I checked the rearview mirror. There she was: my kidnapped Colorado princess, Alice Pryce. My 50,000 dollars.
I should have been happy, really. It was just as easy as Sunshine had promised. Easier even, since the poor dumb girl had sent everyone out of the room right as I’d been coming for some reason. For a good reason, maybe.
I mean, when I’d peered at her from the window, those had definitely been tears I’d seen in her big blue eyes.
“Lie down!” I barked at her, maybe too aggressively.
She obliged. I didn’t want to keep looking at her, seeing if her lips looked less scared than they had the last ten times I had checked.
Jesus, Jake, you’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face, but this is ridiculous.
I pressed my foot on the gas. Maybe if
I drove fast enough, I’d have to concentrate on avoiding inept drivers and slow-ass traffic lights instead of thinking stupid things.
What did it matter if she was hot? If, for the few seconds I had watched her quiet sadness from the window, I’d felt like I understood her better than anyone?
She had probably just been upset her husband-to-be wasn’t even richer, just pissed she’d broken a nail or something. Unless…
I threw a gaze back, but she was still laid out on the car seat, her hands and feet bound, her blindfold and gag in place. No, this couldn’t have been a setup. When I had twisted her around and tied up her hands and feet, as I had slid the gag and, finally, the blindfold in place, the fear in her eyes had been real. She hadn’t been expecting this. Sure, she might not have been happy before I’d kidnapped her, but she certainly wasn’t happy now.
My watch timer beeped, and I pulled over. Now for the next part of the plan.
I dialed the number Sunshine had given me on the burner phone I’d gotten from a convenience store and then lowered my voice.
“Heston Pryce?”
“Yes?”
Damn. The poor old fucker sounded like he was already shitting himself.
“We have taken your daughter. She will be released when you pay 10 million dollars to an account number we will give you.”
“Wait! What are you doing to her? Please, can I just talk to her—”
“Papa, I’m okay!” a voice cried from the back.
Well, if it wasn’t little Miss Society Princess herself.
I hung up the phone, grabbed the gun, and, twisting around, pointed it at her.
“Put the gag and blindfold back on and shut up.”
Our gazes locked, and for a few seconds she stared at me, her eyes moving in a triangle from my eyes to my lips. Her lips parted. Then fury flared through her eyes.
“Or what, you’ll kill me?”
She froze, let out a little gasp, as if she were just as surprised as I was by the stupid thing she had said. As my eyes traced her face, I asked myself, really, what I was going to do if she ran or if he didn’t pay up. What was I prepared to do if things didn’t go according to plan?
I aimed the gun at her foot.
“Some injuries you can live through.”
Her eyebrows crinkled in exasperation, and she jerked her chin up at me, apparently trying to return her gag to its former position.
Oh yeah, her hands were tied up. I went back and put the gag and then the blindfold in place.
Until the black thing slid over her eyes, they were glaring at me with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify.
Even minutes later, once I’d returned to the front seat and pulled back onto the highway, my heartbeat was still hammering like a series of gunshots against my chest.
What was I prepared to do if things didn’t go according to plan? And those eyes, those blue, accusing eyes… Would I be able to do what I had to?
Worse still was that attraction I had seen in her eyes. But so what if it had been there?
I turned the radio back on. As some annoying song I didn’t know twanged away, the question returned once more, this time more anxious: Just what had I gotten myself into?
Chapter Three
Alice
Why was I thinking about how the kidnapper man was hot?
Here I was, tied up, gagged and blindfolded, and, like an idiot, I was thinking about how handsome the man who had done this to me was. Though it wasn’t really my fault. With that sculpted face and those thick-lashed green eyes, my kidnapper probably got it all the time.
I opened my eyes and then closed them again. Right, I was blindfolded.
The strangest thing of all, as I lay there with my life in danger, my father threatened, my wedding without a doubt ruined, was that amid the fear, anger, and hopelessness, there was another feeling. Relief. Could this kidnapping have been exactly what I needed?
I shifted farther down in the seat. If only Lux were here, then she could whack me. What was I thinking? This wasn’t what I needed. This was ruining everything. By the sounds of it, I might not even make it to tomorrow, and I was thinking about how relieved I was that this had happened?
The car went over a bump, and I was sent flying onto the floor.
“You can sit up now,” the kidnapper said.
I started to say a sarcastic “thank you” before remembering that I had a gag in my mouth.
“I said shut up,” he snapped, evidently hearing my useless mumbling.
The rest of the ride was a black boring nothing. I tried making a short list of people who wanted to kidnap me, but considering that my dad was Heston Pryce, superstore magnate, my “short list” soon encompassed basically anyone within a ten-mile radius who needed some extra cash.
Poor Papa. And poor Paul, too. He had been so excited for this day, texting me countdowns—only 10 more days, only 9, 8, 7. Little had he known how each text had filled my belly with a nervous nausea, how I’d only sent an emoticon happy face back because I’d had nothing else to say.
Now who knew when I’d see him again? My phone was back in the Ritz-Carlton dressing room, along with everyone I cared about and my entire life. God, what was going to happen now?
After what seemed like forever, the car finally stopped. The door was opened and my arm was grabbed.
“I’m taking you inside. If you’re good, the blindfold and gag can come off and I’ll untie your feet,” he said as I was carried out of the car and over what sounded like gravel.
Then it was up some wooden stairs and over a mat. We stopped. There were some sounds of what must have been a key in a lock, then a door creaking open.
“Up we go,” the voice said, and I complied.
One step up, a few steps in, and I was pushed onto something soft, cushy. A couch. The blindfold was slid off, the gag was taken out, and my feet were untied. When I looked up, the man was already at the door, pushing what looked like a giant old stove in front of it.
Now he was going to the fridge and taking out a can of soda.
“This all seems pretty ordinary for a kidnapping,” I said.
He walked over to the couch and sat beside me.
“What did you expect?”
“A dark room, closet maybe. More men. I don’t know.”
He shrugged.
“Sorry to disappoint. Can’t say I’m really experienced at this.”
His two scarred fingers popped open the cola, and he put his two full lips to the hole. I glared at him.
“So why did you do it then? What did my dad or I ever do to you?”
Mid-drink, the man held up a finger. Then, lowering the can, he shrugged again.
“Nothing. I’m not the one who wants you kidnapped or who’s getting the money; I’m just the middleman.”
As I studied his nonchalant face, he took another long guzzle of cola.
“How do you live with yourself?” I demanded.
Smirking, he lowered the can. Patting my cheek, he said, “Just take it day by day, baby.”
There was something terribly sad in his eyes as he said it. Looking away, he rose.
“So, if you’re the middleman,” I said, “then what’s the middleman’s name?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Think I’m dumb enough to tell you my name? Why does it even matter?”
“No reason,” I muttered, looking at the floor. “Just so I’d know what to call you.”
“You don’t have to call me anything,” he said, his footsteps pounding on the wood as he stormed away. There was a pause, and this time when he spoke, his voice was softer, kinder. “But you can call me Jake, if you want to.”
By the time I peeled my eyes off the floor, he was at the top of the stairs and taking off his shirt. Just then I noticed how well-built he was. His arms were toned and huge, his chest broad and sculpted.
“I’m taking a shower. If you try to escape, I’ll shoot you,” he said casually.
As he unzipped and pu
lled down his pants, he added, “Though good luck getting that stove away from the door.”
I stared at him, speechless at the sight of his ripped muscles and the black tattoos snaking all over them.
The sound of clothing snapping made me start, and I looked at Jake to see a cheeky grin on his face, his underwear band in hand.
“What? You wanna join?”
“No!” I declared, turning away.
Just before he sauntered off, he said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t blush while trying to be convincing.”
As soon as I heard the bathroom door shut upstairs, I raced to the front door. Stopped there, I directed my glare to the ancient-looking stove. It was taller than me and wider than two of me. There were tufts of dust everywhere. I sneezed. Great. Now was not the time for my allergies to flare up.
I took another step toward the stove, put the sides of my bound hands on the side, and froze. What was the point? Clearly, it was hopeless. The thing probably weighed over 300 pounds.
I looked down at my wedding dress—still pristinely white, though now definitely ridiculous, all cooped up here and kidnapped as I was. I thought of Papa, the tears in his eyes when he had told me what had happened to Mom. The same tears that no doubt gathered in that mustache of his now. Yes, that was the point. I had to try—if not for myself, then for Papa.
And so I put my bound hands against the side of the huge black thing, leaned back, and then threw my whole weight forward.
All I accomplished, however, was smacking my cheek into its hard metal side and falling to the ground. Stunned on the wooden slats of the floor, I stared up at the stove’s mocking immobile immensity. Despite the quickness of my desperate push, the thing hadn’t so much as trembled. I collapsed back onto the floor, finally letting the tears come.
Now there was no denying it. I was stuck here with a man who had threatened to shoot me—and would, no doubt. I was stuck here with a man I was strangely, dangerously, attracted to. I was stuck here with a man in this foreign place where anything could happen.
The sound of water running upstairs got me back up. Maybe he had blocked the door but missed another way out—a window, something. He had said that he wasn’t used to doing this after all. So, I made my way around the small downstairs, which was really one room, the kitchen and sitting area separated by nothing but a beat-up-looking set of table and chairs.
